What is the difference between an AB test and a split test?

An “AB test” tests page elements against each other.

Try a different button color on your website? You’ll probably want to AB test just that button, rather than the entire page.

A “split test” tests complete pages against each other

If you want to try two radically different ideas, Split testing allows you to test the efficacy of both of those pages quickly and easily.

We generally don’t recommend Split tests, for a few reasons.

1. They take a longer time to set up. You need to creating an entire new page, design it, build it, check your SEO is OK, make sure the redirect is as fast as possible. Jobs that take this long often just get skipped as the return on effort isn’t there.
2. Usually, you’re just testing a couple of elements on your site, not a radically different design. Most of the extra work is redundant.
3. Split tests generally involve redirecting your users to different pages, which takes time, and gives them the dreaded page flicker as a different page loads. In a world of shortening attention spans, every second is critical.

Generally an AB Test is the way to go, but why not use a tool that enables both?

AB Split test is the best solution for AB testing, with the option to enable a full page split testing too. Because occasionally, you might need it.